Common Ground — Food for Thought

By ewbexec

Our most recent meetings have introduced a new element called “Common Ground”! We’ve introduced them as a way to get perspective on the work we’ve been doing as a student group and to draw inspiration from other people in the world of global development who’ve successfully been able to make a change.

As students, it’s easy for us to get bogged down in the everyday tasks and develop tunnel vision. There’s always another problem set or essay due, email that needs to be taken care of, material to study, sleep to catch up on. But it’s important to us that we don’t develop tunnel vision and ignore the larger reason of why we’re involved in such an extraordinary group as Engineers Without Borders. Common Ground has been a way for us to set aside a couple of minutes every other week and reflect on what we’re doing, have done, and are looking forward to achieving. Last year, it was to break ground on our Naluja Program by sending travelers to Zambia. This year, it’s been to work on developing antenna prototypes, and start research into water quality, sanitation, and power generation. It’s a lot to take on, but we’ve been diligently working on making progress in time for next year.

Below is one of the recent videos we’ve watched, entitled “Build a Tower, Build a Team” and featuring Tom Wujec, who is a Fellow at Autodesk and has worked on business visualization, which utilizes design and technology to help groupwork become more efficient by understanding ideas and problem solving. The premise of his experiment is simple — to have groups of people (businessmen, engineers, lawyers, and even kindergartners!) build the highest tower using dry spaghetti, one yard of tape, and one marshmellow. Who built the highest structure? Well, the results might surprise you.

This video has showed us how important collaboration is among engineers. No one person can attain success all on his/her own, especially on something as important as our program and projects in Naluja. We hope to continue our collaborative efforts well into the future!